Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Senez

Senez

Senez is among the oldest bishoprics in Provence: its first known bishop, Marcel, sat at a council in 506. The cathedral to be seen today is Romanesque, and historians agree in dating it to the late 12th century: begun, it is said, in May 1176, it is said to have been consecrated on 22 October 1246. The apse came first, the nave in the first half of the 13th century: a single vessel of four bays under a great pointed barrel vault, a short choir bay, a semi-domed apse, two chapels forming a low transept, all in a fine local limestone in medium-sized ashlar with fine joints. In 1569 the Huguenots of Antoine de Mauvans smashed the marble colonnettes of the portal and destroyed the cloister and the canons' buildings. On 4 July 1835 the vault collapsed; those of the first two bays were rebuilt from 1837 to 1840. In the 18th century it was the bishop who got Senez talked about. Jean Soanen, bishop from 1696 to 1727, a convinced Jansenist, appealed in 1717 against the bull Unigenitus alongside three other bishops; in 1727 the provincial council of Embrun, presided over by Archbishop Pierre Guérin de Tencin, suspended him from all episcopal power and jurisdiction, and he was banished to La Chaise-Dieu, where he remained until his death in 1740. The church retains 16th-century choir stalls, an altar and a lectern of the 17th and 18th centuries, tapestries commissioned by Mgr de Ruffo Bonneval, one of the last bishops, and a sundial on the facade.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Senez ↗

Getting there : Place de l'Église, Senez (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), beside the Route Napoléon between Castellane and Barrême. Opening times and visiting conditions: to be checked, none of the sources consulted gives them.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound